Towns of the area

Roccalbegna

The
municipal territory di Roccalbegna extends for 124,96 square kilometres
in the high Valley of the river Albegna, in an area of medium mountains
positioned on the southern slopes of Monte Labbro. Medieval Castle
and feudal in modern times, comprises in its confines, other than the
capital, the districts of Cana Vallerona, Santa Caterina and Triana.
In 1863 the district of Semproniano was detached from its territory to
form, from that date, an autonomous municipality.

The Castle of Raccalbegna is cited in 1210 in a privilege of Emperor
Ottone IV in favour of the Abbey of Monte Amiata. Subjected to the
high dominion of the Aldobrandeschi, towards the end of the 1200s it was
assigned to the Santa Fiora branch of the Counts. Anyway already from
the first decade of the XIII century a local family had the Lordly
rights on the castle, the Ranieri di Ugolino di Roccalbegna, whose
descendents between 1293 and 1296 were forced to cede their rights to
the Siena municipality. During the Siena dominion Roccalbegna suffered
assaults and attacks by the Aldobrandeschi as in 1331 when the gangs of
the Count Andrea di Santa Fiora sacked the town. It declined from XIV
century, and after the fall of the Siena republic it was assigned
in feudal by Cosimo I dei Medici to Cardinal Antonio Sforza and to
the descendents of the family Sforza-Cesarini of Santa Fiora. Returned
in 1624 to the Grand Duke, Roccalbegna was again feudal, in 1646 to the
Bichi-Ruspoli family, which whom it remained until 1751. Among the districts
one must mention Castello di Triana, originally in the Aldobrandeschi
dominion, ceded in 1388 to Piccolomini. During the resistance partisan
formations operated in the municipal territory and a slaughter by the
retreating Germans provoked six victims in May 1944.

Places to visit:Ss. Pietro e Paolo, Romanic church
from the 1200s; it was reworked several times in the subsequent centuries.
Houses three paintings on wood from the 1300s.